Like the Glitch of a Ghost

Overview

Alapadu is a village in the Amazon rainforest in the interior of Suriname, which in the 1950s was a Dutch colony. In a film produced by the Diaconal Institute of the Dutch Reformed Church, which ended up in the archives of the Eye Film Museum, the inhabitants are still referred to as 'Indians.' However, the central figure in the film is a young white missionary who works there as a nurse. She dresses wounds, hands out medicine for worm infections, gives advice here and there, and teaches children the basics of Dutch so they can "have some command of the language" if they have go to the capital city, Paramaribo.